Don’t. Be. Fucking. Douchebags!

It’s really that simple.

Be considerate. That little old Hispanic lady at the bus stop? Help her onto the bus instead of loudly bitching about how she’s going to make you late to your meeting at The Creamery.

Be respectful. This neighborhood was here before you and will be here after you leave. It’s not your trashcan, your toilet or your playground. Understand the history and the culture and the people and act in a manner that isn’t stupidly offensive.

Be sensitive. The traditional residents of this neighborhood are not rich and never will be. Flaunting your wealth and your opportunities is a douche move. 

chris tacy. gawker, 11.06.13.

i’m glad (for the most part) of the common (mis)conception that oakland is dangerous, ridden with crime, blah blah blah…

hopefully those false(-ish) fears will keep deterring people from coming to oakland, although the nytimes has named it one of the top cities in the world to travel to, and although a consistent string of good acts come to play at the beautifully renovated fox theater.

cuz we don’t want oakland to become the “new mission”, right??!! (although a sfweekly post i read a couple months back proclaimed that oakland is “the new mission” already. but i disagree.)

there really exist people who live in SF (not native sf bay area peepz) who HAVE NEVER been to the east bay. like wow, wtfsrsly I can NOT be your friend. don’t tell me you’ve never taken BART before, either. (it’s an eleven-minute BART ride SF—oakland.)

but whatever, right? snobby, douchey folks should just stay out. we don’t want you here. you won’t contribute to our diverse city.
they don’t know what they’re missing out on. but hey, more chill space for us. (until the SF rents peak spreads across the bay and we can’t afford it here, either… gotta make more headlines involving shootings? :P)

The hollow shells stared at me with broken windows for eyes, and the existential void beneath the layers of darkness reminded me of the abandoned buildings littered throughout the city of Houston. I’ve been documenting the evolution of the city photographically for half a decade, and in that time I realized two things: There is a large population of homeless citizens out on the pavement and there are numerous unused buildings that have been empty for years. It’s ludicrous to me that there are shelters for these people, but a NO TRESPASSING sign and an idle security guard keeps A and B separated. Logic tells me that A plus B equals C, the solution in which abandoned buildings can be used as housing for the homeless, even if only temporarily. But politicians have a different equation, a different kind of mathematics, a different kind of logic. They would rather raze the buildings and sell the lot to developers, thus bringing business to the area, and that would pump money into the city…

What cities throughout America need is not just a new approach in urban planning, but a new urban policy. Abandoned structures should not only be regenerated as a housing project for the homeless, but also as hosts for education centers to teach the citizens new skills that will allow them to be independent and self-sustaining.

notebook no.9, 13.02.13.

The cause: the relocation of San Francisco residents, who are increasingly priced out the market. The effect: increased revenue for Oakland and a rise in tenant complaints.

ebx, 19.12.12.

well, there’s the proof with numbers.

bf had been looking for a place for like three months, and his sister moved here from sf recently for a new job, and both confirmed that by the day, rents were getting more expensive, as seen on craigslist.

yeeah mang, gotta settle in east or west oakland. uptown, downtown, and even places near lake merritt are unaffordable, unless you make way more than three times the rent.

also see: The Flipping Frenzy. ebx, 19.12.12.

Low inventory and high demand for Oakland real estate this year favored investors over first-time buyers.

According to a report produced earlier this year by the Urban Strategies Council, a respected nonprofit that has analyzed Oakland’s housing market, 42 percent of the 10,000 homes in Oakland that ended up in foreclosure from 2007 through October 2011 were purchased by investors — either at trustee sales on the courthouse steps or directly from financial institutions. Many of these homes were then later flipped at much higher prices.

also: The Year Oakland Exploded. ebx, 19.12.12.

For the first time in recent memory, Oakland’s being noticed for its culture, not its crime rate. Is that a good thing?

This is a city with immense opportunities and equally immense challenges, a city that, when all’s said and done, really does have both Michelin-starred restaurants and its fair share of the Times’ “grit,” even if we wouldn’t necessarily describe it that way.

It’s a city whose downtown corridor is drawing well-deserved accolades while the vast swaths to the east and west are under-covered and overlooked, still rife with violence and poverty.

It’s a city that’s managed to make and remake itself in innumerable ways, but it’s also a place where systemic problems have festered for generations. It is, in other words, a city that encapsulates many of the ambitions and anxieties of postindustrial America. 

i hella <3 oakland.

first friday, 02.11.12.

and: The Year of the Boutique. ebx, 19.12.12.

Despite the downturned economy, 2012 may be remembered as the year Oakland became a shopping destination.

Although these stores largely opened independently of each other, there’s a common theme tying many of them together: community mindedness, a genuine love of Oakland, and the desire to support sustainably, locally, and US-made products. 

basically, go pick yourself up a copy of the east bay express.

thiscitylife:

Photo Credit: Dean Terry

The issue of gated communities in North America is rearing its ugly head again. It started earlier this year with the death of Trevon Martin, the young man visiting family in a gated community who ended up being accused of trespassing and shot dead in an altercation…

(via humanscalecities)